This Nun Has Some Questions for Trump's Supreme Court Pick, and They Aren't About Abortion

Sister Simone Campbell is not in the habit of shrinking from social activism—and if that includes calling out a potential Supreme Court justice, so be it.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee considers President Donald Trump’s latest nominee to the bench, Campbell and more than 1,000 Catholic leaders are staking out their own faith-based position, asking lawmakers in a letter to look beyond the abortion-centered conversations dominating headlines about Judge Brett Kavanaugh. As a conservative judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he hasn’t explicitly stated he will overturn Roe v. Wade and has described it as "settled law." But critics point to Trump’s vow to place all pro-life justices on the bench, if given the chance, and Kavanaugh’s positioning on cases involving abortion as cause for alarm.

For Campbell, a former attorney for a law center for the poor, and her compatriots, there's a larger picture.

“When we saw the focus on one single issue of Roe v. Wade as being the religious test, it said to me, ‘Wait a minute. There's so much more than this one narrow—important albeit—singular issue,’” Campbell, best known as a leader of the Nuns on the Bus campaign, told Glamour in an interview ahead of the Kavanaugh hearings, which began Tuesday. “We believe that the broader faith dimension goes to the common good, not to political polarization.”

Tuesday’s letter to lawmakers shows that even among active members of the Catholic church—as is Kavanaugh himself—faith-based sentiment about the Supreme Court goes past the future of Roe.

"As Catholics, we believe that any government official—including a Supreme Court Justice—must be concerned with the needs of people who are marginalized, not just the rich and powerful or a member of one’s own political party," says the letter, signed by 1,550 Catholic leaders under the banner of the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, which Campbell leads as executive director. The letter pushes for answers from Kavanaugh on five topics: health care, immigration, labor rights, voting discrimination, and the death penalty. It’s signed by Catholic clergy including nuns (and priests and deacons) from Dubuque, Iowa, to Nashua, New Hampshire, to Columbus, Indiana (hometown of Vice President Mike Pence), and New York City (hometown of President Donald Trump).

"By prioritizing these issues as you make your deliberations, we believe you can ensure that the religious consciences of all people are honored and protected, rather than preferencing the beliefs of the few," the memo says, adding, “We are praying for you during this deliberative time.”

The network letter notes that “as Catholics, we share a faith tradition with Judge Kavanaugh,” but goes on to say that “as people of the United States, we know that in our diverse society, where we meet is in the Constitution.”

The signers talk, in many ways, about the sanctity of life, but never use the word “abortion.” (The letter does, however, make reference to respect for court precedent.) And the group's stance on several issues is clear: "As Catholics, we know that health care is a right," the letter says, expressing concern about what the writers call Kavanaugh’s "history of undermining the Affordable Care Act [and] attacking the individual mandate and access to health care for women." On immigration, "our faith teaches that we must welcome the stranger and love our neighbor," they write, asking whether Kavanaugh's record suggests he won’t give newcomers “the respect our faith and our nation teach they deserve."

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Campbell herself is pragmatic about how central abortion rights are to the national discussion about Kavanaugh and the court. "Personally, what I've realized is outlawing abortion is one way to respond to our reverence for all of life, but quite frankly, it's not effective. I'm tired of [the focus on overturning Roe],” she says. The better solution, to her mind: “Supporting pregnant women so that they can carry their fetuses to term and be able to support kids, because we know that the majority of people that choose abortions do it for economic reasons. That's horrifying.”

Campbell says she and her colleagues are intent on not allowing any faction to narrow abortion or Roe to defining Catholic issue in the SCOTUS conversation—and on not being “intimidated or controlled by their efforts to hijack the debate." And she doesn't want to get caught in the partisan divide. “Most Democrats and Republicans use this choice-life issue as an organizing principle," Campbell told Glamour. "For us, it's a faith-grounded commitment, that everyone has dignity."

So bottom line, does she oppose Kavanaugh?

“I'm a lawyer, so I do try to withhold judgment until I have all the answers. There's a bunch of answers that are still missing for me. My hunch is, especially [based] on his decisions on health care, that I'd say I'm like maybe 60 percent opposed. If he evidences some change or heart, some different perspective, I'm somewhat swayable. He'd have to step up and explain why he's changed,” she says.

For now, Campbell says, her hope is to convince people that a religious approach to considering the future of the Supreme Court goes far beyond the intense focus on Roe. “What we're trying to do is to open it up and say, ‘This isn't just women in childbearing age who need to be worried about this,’" she says. "It's the whole nation.”